


The Dark and the Light

by LananiA3O



Category: Darksiders (Video Games)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, around 70 percent hurt, corrupted Death, may need a warning for graphic violence - not sure - feedback appreciated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:01:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27821926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LananiA3O/pseuds/LananiA3O
Summary: There is a reason why souls are cleansed before the enter the Well--to avoid them being rebirthed tainted and doomed to corruption. When Death sacrificed himself with the nephilim amulet stuck in his chest, their Corruption was born anew inside him upon his rebirth. Now, a thousand years later, Death has become but a feral, corrupted shadow of himself, but Azrael refuses to give up. Some people are worth risking everything for.
Relationships: Azrael/Death (Darksiders)
Kudos: 9





	The Dark and the Light

**Author's Note:**

> Dipping my feet in the shipping pool again, as my tribute for Day 2: lore ships, of Darksiders Week 2020. The idea behind this fic is based on this amazing "bad ending" AU fanart of a corrupted Death:  
> https://another-darksiders-blog.tumblr.com/post/631139383390715904/reupload-of-day-3-and-4-after-a-little-fix-your
> 
> Please let me know if you think this fic needs a warning for graphic violence. I don't think it does, but I think it's a close call.
> 
> Disclaimer: This work was written for publication on Archive of Our Own and my personal Tumblr and is not for profit. Any re-publication on for-profit/monetized sites/apps is not authorized or supported by me. If you come across such a re-publication, please leave a comment in my tumblr ask box. Podfics and translations may be authorized upon request.

Since the dawn of time, Azrael's first and foremost duty had been to be observant. At first, Heaven had been his charge. To observe and to oversee the recording the lives, creations and achievements of those the Creator had formed after him, and those of their children and their children's children. For eons no angel had lived and breathed in the Citadel who had seen more, known more, than Azrael himself.

Only once Enoch, an Old One so ancient Azrael had never ceased to feel young at the mere mention of their name, had been lost, only then had Azrael's duty to the White City ended, only to be replaced by an even greater task: to observe not just the growth of Heaven's children, but the beginning and end of every life that ever was and ever would be. To take note of every soul that entered the Tree of Death and verify its purity, and to take note of every soul that left the Tree of Life to rejoin creation and verify its destination. What an honor!

What a burden!

To be so far from the Light... so far from everything that was more than a spark... locked forever in the warm, blue glow of the Well, and the billions of souls swirling within it... Any other angel might have been driven mad, but Azrael knew death. He knew the cold. He knew the solitude. 'Strange' the other firstborn angels had called him. 'Unnatural.' But what was more natural then the beginning and end of life? Even angels and demons, blessed with immortality as they were, could not brag of invulnerability. There was a difference between 'unending' and 'unendable' and Azrael knew it better than most. It was not knowledge he had been born with, but knowledge he had acquired. As he had lived. As he had served. As he had watched.

He should have seen this coming. Had he only—as the humans liked to say—put one and two together.

The Well had been corrupted. Azrael had felt it the moment War had freed him from Straga's prison. Something dark and poisonous had taken root inside of it at some point during his absence. It had fed on the souls that swirled in its depths and on the roots itself, leaving gnarled wounds that left Azrael's soul to weep in quiet despair as he set to repair the damage. For that had been the Creator's charge for him, at the end of the apocalypse. After humanity's return to Eden. After the new order had been established in Heaven and Hell. After the end of the Charred Council and the re-affirmation of the Horsemen's vows, this time to the Father himself. His penance for the harm he had caused.

How many years had passed since then? A century? A millennium?

It would have pained him to learn that any creature in the universe would have suffered for so long, thanks to his inattention. It would have crushed him to learn of the same happening to a friend.

This... was infinitely worse. This... was Death.

 _No_. Azrael closed his eyes and swallowed hard. It was what had _become_ of Death. And it was so much worse.

From beneath a half-broken mask that looked like bone and moved like cartilage, a sound escaped the creature that could only be called feral if one was inclined to be particularly generous and kind. He could feel it reverberate in his own angelic soul, a cry of agony and confusion and unbridled rage. Where once two eyes of glowing amber had burned with the fire of a dying sun, a sickly, menacing yellow glow shone unfocused, darting from one opponent to the next. The creature moved as if possessed—erratic, disconnected from the threads of reality, throwing himself against the confines of Azrael's magic, clawing and scratching until his nails broke off and his skin separated from the flesh. His blood had turned into a thick, black ooze, one which Azrael had seen far too often since his return to the Well.

He had been able to tell that something was wrong with the Well the moment he had been freed by War. He should have been able to tell that something was wrong with Death the moment they had been reunited.

"When did he show the first signs of... this..." Azrael had no words for what had happened to the eldest Horseman, at least not in any language he knew the other three would surely understand. There was one in the angelic tongue of knowledge and it was less of a description and more of a condemnation, a conceit of hopelessness. He refused to use it for someone as dear to his heart.

"Six days ago." The fact that it was Fury who had chosen to answer first brought the slightest hint of a smile to Azrael's face, even as he tended to the wounds Death's hands had left on his brother's scalp and neck. It was good to know the other three had not changed almost past the point of recognition. "We were on a mission together when he started acting distracted and... insecure." The concern in her voice was palpable and Azrael could hardly blame her. 'Distracted' was something Death rarely was. 'Insecure' he was never. "Three seconds later he was trying to murder Strife."

"To be fair though, _that_ is absolutely in character for him." Strife grinned and if Azrael was not mistaken, it was as much an act of amusement and as it was a valiant attempt to hide the grimace Azrael's treatment of his wounds forced onto his face. "He tries that, like... every other century."

"You jest in the light of our current situation?" War all but growled through clenched teeth.

"I 'jest'," Strife answered with a frown, "because the alternative is to cry."

Azrael shook his head. How humanity had managed to teach even the slightest shreds of empathy and emotional honesty to three _nephilim_ of all things, was absolutely beyond his comprehension, but he had not failed to notice that Fury's voice was softer now, just as War's fist was slower to strike, and Strife's tongue less dripping sheer sarcasm.

"We could have known much sooner, though," Strife eventually added, just as Azrael finished applying the last of the necessary ointments. His hands froze immediately, hovering just a finger's width next to the Horseman's neck. "I remember..." Strife swallowed hard. "I remember the first time I saw him again. After the seals were broken. After we were... returned."

 _Revived_ , Azrael wanted to correct him, but the word stuck in his throat. The realization that the Balance had been only one carefully hidden Horseman away from being irretrievably lost never ceased to horrify him, no matter how often it re-entered his memory.

"There was something... off about him," Strife continued. "Like a very, very mild limp, only throughout all the way he moved and talked. I brushed it off because there were more important things to worry about. And by the time it was all sorted out... I had forgotten about it."

Anger was not an emotion that came easily to Azrael. It reared its ugly head now, in the depths of his soul, urging him to grab the Horseman and shout at him, to demand how he could forget something this important, especially when it related to his own brother.

"What I would like to know is why he became this... feral." Fury frowned. "According to Death himself Absalom was still completely lucid when Death fought him, and he had been corrupted for much longer."

"For the same reason Abaddon became the Destroyer while other fallen or corrupted angels turn mad, I would assume." Azrael took a deep breath and finished mending the Horseman's wounds. Anger was not going to help them now. Anger fostered hatred, and hatred was what had birthed this Corruption in the first place. He would not allow it to grow its power any more. Not here, by the Well of Souls, of all places. "Those who give in willingly to the dark usually retain a sense of their self. Those who spend a thousand years fighting it..."

"And once again his insistence on not trusting anyone with anything came back to bite him in the ass. And us. Lovely."

As much as Azrael hated to admit it, there was a certain amount of truth to Strife's words. Death's stubbornness had been bound to fall back on him sooner or later. He only wished it had not happened like this. Not as a matter of life and death.

"And so the three of you subdued him. But why would the Creator send you to me?"

Fury, War, and Strife looked at each other in utter, calculating silence. Like children who had broken furniture and now needed to answer to their angered parents.

Azrael sighed. "The Creator is not aware of your coming here, is He?"

"Oh, I'm sure he's _aware_ ," Strife said, "omniscience and all that. But if you're asking whether he told us 'yes, please go and take your brother to the angel of death with my blessing', then, uh... no. After all, it's not like we can just talk to him any time we want, now that he's pissed off again to who knows where."

"If it is any consolation to you," Fury shifted her weight from one hip to the other and her hair followed the movement, "we did not massacer our way through Heaven's dominion to obtain the angelic key to the Well. Archangel Usiel still owed me a favor."

So Azrael had heard. After all, the roots of the Tree of Life and Death went everywhere. Even to the White City. Even to the Dark Towers. Even to Eden. "And which one of you was owed a favor by the dark ones?"

The silence returned once more, only this time all eyes were on War. The Red Rider gave not so much as the slightest shrug. "It is our brother's life that is at stake here. I have laid waste to worse parts of Hell for less."

"So I do not doubt," Azrael replied in resignation, although it barely qualified as the full truth. He had heard of Uriel's banishment and her escape to Eden with the help of the Horseman. If her life was worth less to War than Death's, it was not by much.

"Look, Az..." Strife got up slowly, eyeing the ether cage that held what was left of his oldest brother with suspicion and grief as he picked up his fractured helmet. "Bottom line is: the only thing we know that can eradicate this kind of corruption for sure is pure and concentrated angelic energy. And a short burst, like what happened to Jamaerah is not helping, because Death's damn regeneration regenerates _everything_. Including the Corruption. Trust me—we tried. He needs a more long-term solution. And pray tell, which angel aside from you would agree to take that part?"

"None."

The answer was as simple as it was sad. To his left, the creature that had once been the Pale Rider snarled and threw himself against the barrier once more. If only Raphael were here! He knew so much more of healing than Azrael ever had. But then again, he doubted Raphael would willingly aid a necromancer, even if he was still entirely present, physically and mentally. Azrael closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"I shall watch over him and do my best to cure him, for as long as my duties and the Creator permit."

Fury's shoulder slumped in relief. Strife sighed. War frowned, almost as if to warn Azrael to keep his promise or else, before turning to leave the Well of Souls. Azrael watched as their silhouettes faded into the shadows of the Tree. A glimmer of light from underneath a blue sky fell through the gap of the dark and light door for just a few moments and he could not help but wonder which world in all of creation they had entered the Well from. Then, the door closed once more with a heavy thud, before the silence returned.

Azrael, turned to the cage once more. "Death--"

The creature tackled the barriers again. His flayed hands had barely started to heal and yet he clawed at the wall once more, with a hunger and hatred that was only matched by the blackness that had claimed his soul.

 _Dark soul of eternity_. That was what the Council had called him once, a title they had bestowed upon Death together with his powers, but this... this was something else entirely. Azrael approached the cage slowly, searching the soul in front him for any trace of the light and finding nothing but hatred, burning and tearing at the edges of every fiber of the one he had called friend and considered more.

For the first time in eternity, Azrael was truly worried for the fate of Death's soul.

***

It was often said amongst the scholars of Heaven that repetition was key, practice was progress, and rituals were sacred. Once upon a time, Azrael might have agreed with them. Now, he wondered who had first coined these sayings and whether they had ever tried to solve any issue that could not be beaten into submission or cut down with a blade.

A thousand days.

A thousand days Azrael had tried and a thousand days he had failed.

Subduing Death long enough to treat him had been challenging enough to say the least, and Azrael bore the scars to prove it—long, ugly welts and ridges left behind by nails that cared for naught but shredding everything in front of them to pieces. One had nearly taken his left eye. On the fifth day, while trying to administer a potion he had been sure would help at least a little—just as it had helped heal the roots of the Tree—Azrael had lost a finger to a set of angry teeth that no longer cared whether what came between them was food or foe.

Even worse, the potion had failed. All his potions had failed. His incantations, his prayers, his magic. The Tree had started to heal. Death had not. Azrael looked at the snarling monster in the gilded cage from where he sat just two feet away, bandaging his latest injuries.

"You are truly too stubborn for your own good, do you know that, old friend?"

"He always was and he always will be. Even when robbed of his sanity."

Azrael almost flinched. How long had it been since the last time someone had managed to sneak up on him like this? He turned around quickly and came face to face with a living legend. Beneath a cloak of ten thousand feathers bound in chains, the Crowfather's hunched figure looked at once smaller than a child and yet infinitely tall. Dust gave an excited squawk, jumping out of the nest Azrael had provided for him next to Death's cage and fluttering to his former master's shoulders with newfound joy. As grim as the situation was, that did draw a small smile from the angel of death.

"I have heard thousands of tales of you since the day I was given life, Crowfather," Azrael spoke gently and nearly winced at the fatigue in his own voice. He could not tire. He could not give up now. "What irony that I should meet you here and now, in such a state."

"I assure you, angel of death, I am faring infinitely better than you are," the Crowfather replied. His ghostly hand brushed the crow's feather's lightly. "Death has lifted my sorrows. I can't say he has done the same for you."

Azrael sighed. "It is not Death that gives me grief, Old One, but the Corruption inside him. I doubt he chose this fate."

"And yet he did."

The Crowfather turned and headed for the Well. Azrael followed him slowly, the Crowfather's words weighing on him like lead. He knew Death was a creature of grief and regret, but he had never known him to give up, to surrender to despair.

They stopped at the edge of the Well. Azrael watched as another soul floated up from its depths and followed its path, whispering the incantation that would transcribe its departure in the Book of the Living.

"You are standing exactly where he stood that day," the Crowfather said softly." Death had a choice back then—return humanity to Earth or the nephilim to Eden. Had he not attacked me in my home, had he agreed to merely take their souls from me just as he had once given them _to_ me, all of this could have been avoided. I would not have died. He would not have ended up with their souls etched into his chest."

Cold horror crept through Azrael's bones. Was _that_ what the sickly yellow shards embedded in Death's right shoulder had once been? "The Council ordered him to destroy their souls."

"And yet he didn't."

Azrael cast a glance back at the ether cage. _And you have the gall to chide your brothers for disobedience..._

"To return mankind to the Earth, the nephilim had to enter the Well first."

"Which means Death had to enter the Well." That much Azrael already knew. Death had sacrificed himself to resurrect humanity. For thousands of years so many people had wondered what it would take to kill Death. The answer was as simple to find as it was tricky to execute: seperate his soul from his body. What he had not known was that he souls of the nephilim had been involved. "I still don't see how this relates to Death's current predicament."

The Crowfather smiled, not in amusement, but in what most closely resembled disappointment mingled with sadness. "Keeper of the Well, what birthed this Corruption?"

"Absalom, and his undying hatred following his death at Eden."

"Absalom, yes. And his slain nephilim brothers and sisters. And what happens when you embed a soul vessel directly in the flesh of a creature, rather than securing it in a proper talisman, using powerful spells?"

"It—" _Father help me!_ The answer was as clear in Azrael's mind as it was terrifying. "It merges... over time... with the soul of the host."

"So it does." The Crowfather nodded. "There is a reason, Keeper, why souls are cleansed in the City of the Dead _before_ they enter the Well. This..." He pointed a spidery finger at the corrupted nephilim. "... This is what happens, when an uncleansed soul enters the Well. I have no doubt that Death knew something was wrong very soon after his return, nor do I doubt that he searched tirelessly for a way to mend himself. He did not find it in a thousand years—do not waste another thousand of your own."

"I do not consider them wasted, Crowfather," Azrael retorted. He was hovering somewhere between indignation and genuine anger. "And I will spend a million if I have to. That said," he took a deep breath, "I thank you for pointing me in the right direction."

And oh what a direction it was! Azrael shook his head as he returned to the cage. If Heaven knew what he was about to do... he could only imagine the uproar, the scandal. Thankfully, he was as far from Heaven now as any angel could be without having a foot in Hell. Did feeling... content, even happy, about that make him a bad angel?

"It will hurt of course," the Crowfather explained as he passed him on the way to the cage, walking calmy to the nest and shooing Dust off of his shoulder. "It will hurt more than any injury of the flesh ever could. The damage will be irreparable. Even if you succeed, you will feel the emptiness where once there was life, until your own time comes. Are you truly prepared for that?"

"Some things..." Azrael put a hand on the cage. It was greeted by more bashing and scratching and snarling of course, but that did not change what he was looking at. Whom he was looking at. "Some people are worth everything."

"Then I wish you good luck, angel of death," the Crowfather took a step back and slowly, almost imperceivably at first, his ghostly form faded against the roots of the Tree. "I believe you will need it."

 _So do I_ , Azrael thought to himself, as he took a deep breath and set out to prepare. He would need a rune circle, an empty vessel, and a sharp blade, at least. More importantly, he would need the strength of the Light now more than ever. Only one angel had ever attempted to do what he was about to do, and he had ended up fleeing from the White City, driven to madness and despair.

Above Azrael's head, the browned leaves of the Tree of Death rustled, trembling in anticipation of the day's end. Of course, time flowed differently inside the Tree. On some worlds, every second a new soul was born into the universe, but inside the Tree one second became an hour. _What would be worse_ , Azrael wondered, to perform this procedure without His blessing and pray to Him broken and pained, or to perform it after the prayer and spend the rest of a long, long day feeling disconnected from the world without so much as the comfort of a prayer?

 _There is no point in dawdling—just get on with it._ That's what Death would say, Azrael was sure, if he was still sane enough to do so. Though Death was not always right, in this case Azrael was inclined to agree with him.

The blade was the easy part. Enoch had left him with a series of well-furnished chambers and carefully treated tools, one of which was a dagger sharp enough to cut through the bark of the Tree of Life and Death and remove any withering twigs or flourishing weeds that needed pruning. He had seen it cut through wood and stone, steel and adamantine, a true masterpiece of maker craftsmanship. And according to Enoch's notes, it was also capable of slicing things of the spirit. Empty vessels he also still had in large number and he picked the one that looked to have the sharpest point.

The rune circle was trickier, although it was mostly a matter of patience. Azrael surveyed his options carefully and eventually decided on the second-brightest room available to him. In spite of how far he was from the White City, it still did not feel right to commit an act as heretical as what he was about to perform in the same room he used for prayer. Azrael waved his hands twice, watching as the furniture moved against the walls on its own and cleared the path for the circle. Then the incantation began.

Rune circles were always slow work, but Azrael had had millions of years to practice his patience. He knew the incantations by heart and the placement of each rune by memory, even if this was one of the forbidden spells. He did not even have to watch as the lines grew all around him, forming symbols of ever-increasing complexity. Only an hour later, when his work was finally done, did Azrael look at the result. Had he still been in Heaven, this circle alone would have been enough to exile him, but as he had said to the Crowfather—some people were worth all the trouble.

Azrael took one final, deep breath, got on his knees in the center of the circle, and ran the blade across the back of his left forearm. His blood dripped onto the circle lazily, bringing the runs to live with a bright glow.

The spell worked, as intended. He could feel the magic channeled through the runes, warping the fabric of space and time itself and reaching into the depths of his soul. The stinging pain that shot through his heart was unlike anything he had felt before—a sensation as if someone had taken a piece from the very core of his being and pulled it through his flesh to the outside world. It materialized in front of him as a strand of white and gold, pulsating with life and glowing with the light the Creator had bestowed upon him. It was all Azrael could do to raise both hands, shaking like the leaves of the Tree.

One to hold the strand. One to make the cut.

The second stab was even worse than the first, and for the first time since his defeat by Straga, Azrael screamed in agony. He rammed the dagger into the ground quickly, dragging it through the runes and breaking the spell. He watched as the strand of his soul withdrew back into his body and though the searing pain stopped, it was as the Crowfather had prophesized: there was an emptiness within him now, a void that could not be filled and that chilled him from the inside, like a shard of ice stuck in an otherwise perfectly warm pool of clear water.

He could only imagine how Raphael had felt, after repeating this process not just once or twice or ten, but hundreds of times.

Thankfully, Azrael could only think of one single person he would go to such lengths for. He swallowed the sudden surge of bile that rose in his throat as the cold spread throughout his body, and connected the piece of soul he had cut with the empty vessel instead. The crystal turned from translucent white to shimmering gold in an instant, humming in his hand and radiating warmth. It felt strange to hold a piece of himself, of his own soul, so detached from his body.

He only prayed to the Creator that it would work.

This time, when Azrael approached Death, the nephilim could tell that something had changed. Azrael's brow furrowed at the sudden restraint the corrupted Horseman showed, before flinging himself at the walls of the cage and trying to rip off Azrael's face. Azrael grimaced. No matter how many times he did this—it never got easier. He raised his hand, traced the invisible runes on the cage, and conjured up the key to fit the lock that appeared. He would only have a few seconds for this.

The wall in front of him split with a golden shimmer. Azrael's hand was raised even before Death lunged, repelling his attack with a burst of divine energy that made the black tendrils of Corruption that grew from his body flail and screech in pain. Azrael moved with effortless ease—a result of a thousand less graceful attempts—and pushed the soul shard hard against the skin just above Death's heart, through the skin, into his flesh, deeper and deeper until he could all but feel the half demon, half angel heart beat around it. The reaction was almost instantaneous.

If Death had been feral before, now he was rabid. Azrael retreated a step in shock as a sound unholier than the cries of a thousand hungry demons ripped from his throat and his clawed hands started tearing at the wound that was already closing. He could only imagine the pain it must cause—to have both the darkest corruption and the purest light infusing into someone's soul at the same time and as much as he hated what he was about to do, Azrael knew it was the only solution.

"I am sorry, old friend."

Azrael untied the blessed rope he had been carrying for the last six-hundred years as a last resort, conjured another burst of divine energy, and used the two seconds of dazed silence this provided to wrench the Horseman's wrist behind his back. The rope coiled around them effortlessly, almost as if it was a sentient being, a snake of angelic magic, wrapping around its prey. If the cage held, then so would the rope.

The resulting reaction was as predictable as it was heartbreaking. Azrael sighed as he stepped back further and closed the cage once more, watching the walls close and lock again. Inside his cell, Death writhed and screamed, trying desperately to undo the ties and failing all the same.

"I am truly sorry." Azrael sat down on the root closest to the cage, his wings folded into a sad bundle of mostly inconvenient feathers behind his back. "I know you don't like being touched, but this is the only way."

He doubted that knowledge was comfort to the suffering nephilim in front of him. He doubted he could even understand a word Azrael said.

And yet, what was there to do but wait... and hope?

***

In the end, it took two full days for Death's initial, rabid behavior to subside. Two days, in which all Azrael could do was pray to the Creator, an act that only served to highlight the hole he had—quite literally—cut into his own soul. The Crowfather had been right. It had left him with a permanent feeling of cold and emptiness stuck inside of him. He could only imagine it must have been equally uncomfortable for Death, only in opposite sensations—like a piece of hot coal forced into a vessel that was already full.

And yet, it was the most hopeful Azrael had felt in a thousand days when he unlocked the cage this time, to bring what little food and water nephilim required to live on, and was not treated by an immediate storm of angry limbs, even though Death had managed to snap the rope he had been bound with.

"Hello, Death." He set the plate down carefully in the near right corner, the one where, as he had learned, it was least likely to get knocked over. From the opposite side of his prison, the corrupted nephilim snarled at him in barely contained menace as he backed off and locked the cage once more. It was a stark contrast to Dust's excited chirping at being presented with fresh water and some seeds, but it was still an improvement. "Would you mind if I joined you, Death?"

It was a rhetorical question of course. He was not entirely sure if Death would have answered such a trivial question even if not overtaken by Corruption, but still, Azrael asked, every day. He sat down in his usual spot, on a moss-covered root to the left of the cage, and started talking as he picked at the food on his plate. About the times they had met, the conversations they had shared. Not all of them were even good memories, but it brought Azrael comfort to remember Death as he had been before—arrogance, entitlement, scathing sarcasm and all—and he liked to think that if there was even still a shred of him left inside this corrupted creature, he would appreciate knowing he had not been forgotten.

"You know, old friend," Azrael frowned, "I look forward to the day when you will finally try to have the last word in every conversation again." It was a far off day, Azrael knew, but still, he finally felt that they were on the right track, at least.

And for once, he turned out to be right. For once, hope turned out to be genuine, not a fluke.

On the twelve day after Azrael had donated a piece of his soul, the snarling stopped.

On the thirtieth day, Death finally joined him for dinner, instead of waiting for Azrael to attend to his duties before wolving down the provided sustenance.

On the sixty-fifth day, the hideous jaundiced crystals that were protruding from Death's flesh finally started to shrink—slowly, admittedly, but Azrael had been looking at them long and often enough to notice the change almost immediately. The joy it sparked inside his damaged soul was unlike anything he had felt before.

On the hundred and eighteenth day, Azrael finally found the courage to attempt something that was either going to prove him right or get him killed—he opened the cage, turned his back, and walked away.

It was a gamble to be sure, although Azrael took comfort in the fact that the Creator himself had constructed the doors that separated the Well from the rest of reality. Without the keys—neither of which were inside the Tree—nothing but newborn souls could escape from the Well. Of course, there was still the Well itself, and Azrael made sure to keep a close eye on the cerulean vortex and a steady hand on the rope he had brought, just in case the situation were to take a turn for the worse.

However, it did not. As a matter of fact, for the first few minutes of the cage being left unopened, Death barely seemed to realize he had the option to leave. Once he did, he looked at the angel as if he suspected there to be some kind of trap. It would have been almost comical to watch, had Azrael not known it came on the back end of eleven-hundred and eighteen days of brutal, unforgiving setbacks and infinitely small improvements.

"Go on, old friend. You are free to leave."

Whether Death had actually understood what he had said, Azrael could not tell, but it made his heart sing nonetheless to watch him emerge from the cage slowly. Though still disjointed and uneven, his movements were nowhere near as erratic as they had used to be. Azrael let him wander as he pleased, only swooping down quickly from his elevated perch when he approached the Well of Souls itself.

"No." It was a single word, but uttered with a sharpness and unforgiving clarity that could have matched any general of Heaven. Azrael waited, wings spread wide and hand on the rope, as Death glared at him, the muscles of his fist twitching sporadically, almost as if he was itching to get in a fight.

Two minutes later, he got what he wanted when Dust made the mistake of not only squawking excitedly as he flew to greet his master, but also trying to land on his shoulder. The quick, but fierce struggle that insulted left both Azrael and Dust with a few feathers missing, and Death prowling the nearby shadows. Azrael glared at the crow in disappointment. "You must be simultaneously the luckiest and most suicidal bird in all of Creation."

Dust cawed his disapproval and flew off into the higher branches of the Tree. In a certain way, Azrael was grateful for the crow's misstep. It had reminded him that even though Death seemed to have regained some sense of composure, he was far from healed yet. Letting him wander freely was one thing. Letting him interact with everything was another.

And so Azrael's next twenty-two days were spent building new cages—around the well, around certain chambers left behind by the esteemed Enoch, which contained artifacts and substances too dangerous to leave lying around a still mostly corrupted nephilim. Thankfully, Death did not try to insist on breaching any of them, attacking them once or twice at most before returning to stalk through the shadows.

On the one-hundred and ninety-first day, Azrael walked into one of the six small libraries hidden in the Tree to find Death asleep on a divan. It was, without a doubt, the most relaxed, the most... peaceful, he had seen him in a long time, if not ever. The crystals growing from his skin had shrunk further as well and though Death had always been an ashen pale, at least some of the color the Corruption had taken from him had returned. Azrael nagivated the room with effortless grace and complete silence, pulled the scroll he had been searching for from its designated shelf, and returned to the well proper.

He had made the right choice. Azrael was sure of it. However hollow the damage to his soul made him feel during each morning and evening prayer, however much it sometimes stung with unforgiving cold, he had made the right choice.

On the two-hundred and sixth day, the Well received another visitor.

He could hear the door to the outside open long before he could see his guest. On his shoulder, Dust cawed a quick warning, before hiding in the Tree branches. Azrael finished the incantations that logged the last two souls that had entered in the Book of the Dead and turned to greet the visitor, only to be met by a familiar face.

"Horseman."

"Az, my man!" Strife was exuberant as always, although eons lived had taught Azrael enough to notice the tension that ran underneath. He was examining the room, looking back and forth between the Well and the spot where the cage had been, a dreadful device long-since dismantled and nearly forgotten by the angel. "Hey, I hate to be a downer and I know you probably wanna get straight to business, but where the hell is... he?"

Azrael smiled softly. It was hard to blame the rider for his unease, given that the last time he had seen his brother, Death had nearly torn out his throat and ripped open his skull. "Would you like to see him?"

"Well, that kind of depends on whether I'd get to receive another thrashing from a Corruption-crazed, nearly invulnerable jerk," Strife lobbed back at him.

"Unlikely," Azrael shrugged." He has not attacked me in almost two-hundred days.

"Two-hundred--?" Strife cocked his head in confusion. Almost as quickly, the realization of where he was seemed to sink in. "Oh. Right. Time flows differently here. He said something about that."

"He? Death?"

"No. The Creator. I'm here on a mission." Strife shook his head and let out a beleaguered sigh. If Azrael had to make an educated guess, he would have called it a sigh of defeat. "But... yeah... I can't believe I'm saying this... I would like to see my brother. If it's not too much trouble."

Azrael nodded and led the way. He hoped that whatever the Creator wanted from him would allow him to remain here. For all the improvements he had made, the Corruption still lingered in Death and some days were worse than others.

They found him by the hearth, the heart of the chambers Enoch had built, standing next to the fireplace in what appeared to be a deep trance. Judging from the way dead embers sporadically sprang back to life, shifting and moving as by some unseen hand, Death was regaining at least some control over his arcane powers. The thought was both encouraging and slightly worrisome to Azrael. He would need to reinforce the barriers around the well and the armory as soon as possible.

"Whatever you do, do not touch him, Horseman," Azrael whispered softly. "He was not fond of it before all this and it remains the surest way to make him lash out."

Strife nodded. Azrael took a deep breath and strode over to the Horseman by the fire. "Death..." The pair of eyes that immediately honed in on him was still yellow, but unless Azrael's happiness at his progress so far was making him delusional, there was a spark of the old amber hue they had normally had in them once more. "We have a visitor."

Death's gaze followed the movement of Azrael's hand and landed on the White Rider, whose hands were hovering dangerously close to his holsters. Azrael could hardly bame him, not after all that had happened. He could only hope he would not have to use his magic to break up a fight today, even if he was mentally preparing himself for the possibility nonetheless.

"Br... bro...ther?"

Azrel froze and so did his guest. For a moment, it felt as if time itself had stopped. Had he just imagined it? Had that broken, raspy sound escaping from underneath Death's cracked mask truly formed a full, coherent word? Even more: a meaningful word?

On the other side of the room, Strife huffed once, before erupting into choking laughter. His hands went to his helmet and pulled it off quickly, to reveal the brightest and happiest smile Azrael had ever seen on any nephilim.

"Well, damn, Az, that's possibly the kindest thing he's ever called me, pre-Corruption times included."

"Az..." To the angel's surprise, not only did Death look at him once more. His right hand, though still covered in sickly yellow crystals and stained by the faded markings corrupted blood, reached up to Azrael's chest, to where he had first extracted and split his soul, leaving behind a scar and a hole that would never heal. "Az...rael..."

"Yes, Death." Azrael closed his eyes and smiled. It had been a small price to pay and he would do it again any day if need be. "It is me."


End file.
